


in which illumi has doubts, and water is not enough to cleanse them

by illumimorow



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Anxiety, Autistic Character, Dissociation, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, autistic illumi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:41:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24226762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illumimorow/pseuds/illumimorow
Summary: Illumi is ever a contradiction.
Relationships: Hisoka/Illumi Zoldyck
Comments: 12
Kudos: 218





	in which illumi has doubts, and water is not enough to cleanse them

**Author's Note:**

> i love illumi a lot so i wrote a thousand words about him dissociating in the shower

It’s warm in here. Heat clouds his mind and the shower doors, water running over Illumi’s face and hair and shoulders.

It’s Hisoka’s hotel, Hisoka’s bathroom, so much smaller than what he’s used to. It doesn’t bother him. The inferior hair products the hotel provides bother him, but Hisoka knows better than to not provide an alternative.

Illumi always showers, after a job. Never mind that his targets die so far away from him, too far for their blood to end up on his hands. It’s the ritual he likes. Needs. Wants. Illumi isn’t sure what those words mean, though. He just acts, without questioning.

There’s a small part of him that has grown tired of this. A little seed named doubt has been planted somewhere within him, and Illumi doesn’t have the strength to tear it from himself. Or perhaps he doesn’t have the strength to let it grow. He isn’t sure. There’s so much he isn’t sure of, anymore.

Cold water drips over his forehead, down over his brows, and it’s only when his eyes begin to sting that he realises he hasn’t moved in…

Some time. He’s not sure. His eyes have only been blankly staring at the drip, drip, drip of the tiny leak under the temperature valve.

He should… clean. He pours shampoo into his hand, gathering up thick hair onto his head and scrubs. It’s methodical, simple actions that require no thought, that allow Illumi’s mind to wander and drift into nothing. It’s a nothing he’s used to, but it’s not usually so intense as this, or so… so…

He doesn’t have the words. They’ve never been taught to him. All that was given to him was a shell, and he filled it with others’ words, words like duty and consequence. Never his own.

He doesn’t mind that, just like he doesn’t mind the way the freezing water bursts over his skin, hard and unrelenting.

He turns the knob anyway. He’s not sure why - the action simply occurs, without any tangible feeling attached to it. It’s often that this happens - action without feeling - but it’s connected with work, or family, that ever present duty, so he doesn’t… mind. This is different.

He studies his own fingers, watching skin shift over bone, watching his knuckles whiten, as though they held the answers. _Why did you move_ , he asks them, _when I did not command it?_

They offer no answers. His body never offers answers, only more confusion. His skin stings at touch, his limbs freeze at certain words, his blood boils and his hands shake and his chest constricts and his heart aches and they never tell him why. He is left with no answers, so he seeks them elsewhere. Or perhaps he ignores them entirely, acts as though they are irrelevant. When it is necessary, his body does what he tells it to, and that’s all that matters.

But bodies can only fulfil their duties when they are perfect. Illumi ensures that his is. He eats healthily, has a regular sleep schedule, exercises often-  
No. He sleeps when his eyes are failing him and eats when his stomach is too empty to breathe and runs until he tastes blood in his mouth and scrubs at his skin until it bleeds and _that_ is how he achieves perfection.

It’s measured, of course. Illumi is not reckless. These things are acceptable, this pursuit of perfection (the way he has interpreted it) is allowed as long as it doesn’t interfere. He sleeps enough to function well, he eats enough to surpass the physical strength demanded of him.

Illumi is ever a contradiction.

There’s a contradiction now, as Illumi, always hyper-vigilant, is completely unaware of how deeply his nails are scratching into his skin. Blood is falling with water and forming orange petals on the pristine shower floor, as Illumi’s sharp nails perfect a mark. A week old scar is healing, scabbing over and leaving dry flakes on his otherwise smooth, unblemished skin. It’s disgusting. Illumi scratches over this aberration until all the flakes are gone, and there’s only a thick pink line, raised skin covered in deep red scratches that will quickly fade. It’s fine. It’s fine.

“Illumiii,” a voice calls, lingering past the sound of the shower water hitting his back. If he turned up the heat, perhaps it could soothe his stiff, aching muscles. He tries it, fingers curling around the metal handle and turning it.

“Illumi.” The voice is sharper this time, cutting past the fog that cases the glass shower door. “I’m bored. Come play with me.”

Boredom is something Hisoka complains of often, but it’s not an emotion Illumi is familiar with. _Emotion_ isn’t something Illumi is familiar with - he is only familiar with those strange things his body does sometimes, and not the reasons for them. He wonders what it would be like, to feel something so strongly that you could hold it down and name it.

He decides to try. His fingers are still curled around the shower handle, so he pushes it as far as it will go, listening to the hiss of steam as it scalds his skin. Perhaps he’ll regret this later, but for now, he doesn’t care. It’s a refreshing thing to think. Soothing, almost.

It hurts. Pain is something Illumi is used to, something that’s muted now after so many years of exposure, and yet the boiling water digs so deep into his skin that it _hurts_. Illumi closes his eyes, and lets himself breathe, and hears a sigh that sounds almost like relief.

“…Are you drowning yourself in there?”

The words come back after a little while. Illumi opens his eyes to find his skin blotchy and patchy and wrong, so he turns the handle the other way so the cold water can fix it.

“Have you no patience, Hisoka?” Illumi asks, voice carrying easily over the noise.

“No.” Hisoka’s nails scratch at the door. “Mm. Can I join you?”

“No.”

Illumi rinses off, shuts the water off, dries off, switches off. That was enough of… whatever that had been. He towels his hair dry until it’s just damp, dresses quickly in clean clothes, and opens the door to find Hisoka still waiting for him.

For a moment, Hisoka’s brows knit together, and he _looks_ at Illumi. “Ah… are you alright?”

“I’m fine.”

It’s a lie. They both know it. But Hisoka finds him more interesting that way, and Illumi doesn’t know how else to be.


End file.
